Badgemore Park Society Team Challenge - Oct 2023

A TOFS team (Dave Bolus, Rob Lindley, Alex Fraser & Simon Jones ) came second at the Societies Team Challenge at Badgemore Park last Friday. 

TOFS @ Badgemore Park

17 Society 4 balls took part in a shotgun start at 10am. We started on the 18th (knowing we would be facing the only hole with a significant water hazard ) … Things didn’t start too well when captain Dave Bolus hooked our first tee shot into the woods and out of bounds and Simon also having a bit of a nightmare with a shot that barely got off the tee but Rob steadied the ship with one up the middle and we were underway. 

The format was the best two Stableford scores on each hole with 85% handicaps and after a dodgy total 3 points on our first hole the 18th after a while we started to pull things together a bit. Simon was having trouble with his tee shots and Alex was having trouble with short putts but we managed reasonable scoring on the par 4s thanks to steady play from Rob and Dave and some remarkably (maybe lucky) very long putts from Simon and Dave that dropped for us. We were playing off the white tees which meant pretty much all the par 3s were 200 yards or more and we found scoring on the par 3s a challenge. I think we only had one tee shot on the green of a par 3 all day. 

So as we put together a score of 82 points we weren’t that hopeful thinking that probably 90+ would be required to get on the podium. So we were surprised and delighted when the organisers did the prize giving and started off with “and in fourth place with a score of 76 points …”. So we knew we were on the podium at least. The second place score … 79. Wow this was getting tense. And then the organiser said the winners on countback with 82 points we learned that we had only come second rather than first as a result of countback on the very last hole (tied overall, tied back 9, tied last 6,’even tied last 3). And of course the last hole being the 18th was actually our first with those nervous tee shots. 

So no trophy but we did each win some nice golf shirts from the pro shop and Rob won a box of balls in the raffle. A nice meal of chicken with a crumble desert followed and a good time was had by all. 

Rob Lindley